Preferences as Memory

该提案将偏好作为决策科学和经济学的一个关键结构，作为人类记忆系统的自然输出，遵循其他类型知识的属性和特征。 这种将偏好当作记忆的方法表明，偏好既不是在每一个场合都根据第一原则重新“构建”的，也不是完全稳定和不变的。 本研究试图通过考察偏好构建中的记忆机制来解释和预测偏好偏离理性经济模型规定的重要现象（包括损失厌恶、跨期折扣和权衡困难）。 这些包括启动，即，在呈现相关概念后概念可及性的短暂增加;抑制或干扰，即，一类现象，其中回忆先前学习的材料的部分的指令阻碍了随后回忆其余部分;反应性，即其中记忆的访问产生其内容和结构的变化;记忆表征的结构，即，概念属性的数量及其相互联系的系统。 拟议的理论和实证工作有以下三个目的：（1）说服行为决策研究者，他们忽视了参与偏好形成和表达的（记忆）过程，（2）证明目前对大多数外显记忆过程的考虑是不完整的，以及（3）表明，少量已确立的记忆特性的结合提供了跨越大量偏好和选择现象的概念整合，这些现象的范围从损失厌恶到权衡困难，次可加性，锚定和过度自信 使用记忆框架来理解偏好的形成和改变，也会产生社会上重要的实际应用。 更好地了解记忆过程和偏好构建的发展变化可能有助于设计干预措施，以尽量减少老年人群记忆表现变化对判断和选择的社会有害后果。

The proposal examines preference, a key construct in decision science and economics, as the natural output of the human memory system, following the properties and characteristics of other types of knowledge. This preferences-as-memory approach suggests that preferences are neither "constructed" from first principles anew on each occasion, nor completely stable and immutable. The research attempts to explain and predict important phenomena in which preference deviates from rational-economic model prescription (including loss aversion, intertemporal discounting, and tradeoff difficulty) by examining the memory mechanisms involve in preference construction. These include priming, i.e., a transient increase in the accessibility of a concept after presentation of a related concept; inhibition or interference, i.e., a class of phenomena where instructions to recall parts of previously learned materials hinders subsequent recall of the rest; reactivity, i.e. where access of memory produces changes in its content and structure; structure of memory representations, i.e., the number of concept attributes and the system of their interconnections. The proposed theoretical and empirical work has the following three purposes: (1) to convince behavioral decision researchers that they are ignoring the (memory) processes involved in the formation and expression of preference at their peril, (2) to demonstrate that current considerations of mostly explicit memory processes are incomplete, and (3) to show that the incorporation of a small number of well established memory properties provides conceptual integration across a large number of preference and choice phenomena that range from loss aversion to tradeoff difficulty, subadditivity, anchoring, and overconfidence. Societally important practical applications also arise from the use of a memory framework for understanding the formation and modification of preferences. A better understanding of developmental changes in memory processes and preference construction could help, for example, to design interventions that would minimize socially harmful consequences of changes in memory performance on judgment and choice in geriatric populations.